bricks, horses, carriages.

[lookingland]

dunno what i was thinking when i chose this as an angle to draw a panel from. i meant to scan this before i starting filling in the horse so you could get a sense of what my "roughs" look like when i just slap them on the page before they get refined and inked. at least the horse isn't smiling ~ ha! and look at how wongy my perspective is on the street (that'll get corrected!). i'd have finished another two pages already if i hadn't made this silly panel so complicated.


: D

in research news, i finally found an actual photograph of two horses in harness in which one of the horses has fallen. i had seen a drawing of such long time ago and it stuck in my head, so i wrote a story called "A Horse in the Road" (which some of you might remember). it was suggested to me that one of a team of horses might not be able to fall without bringing down the other. i don't know squat about horse rigging, i only knew i had once upon seen a picture and i couldn't really trust my memory on the matter.

so finally here's a picture for reference, totally not intended as an "i told you so" since, like i said, i know nothing about how these things work. i figured that falling horses (especially in the 19th century) would be common, so it would only make sense that the rigging be designed not to injure the rest of the team if one were to fall (sort of like break away pet collars). this picture might be educational (for anyone needing such obscure education?).





Amstel Beer horse carriage, 1959.
from this interesting site
(where you can also see the picture larger for more detail).

Comments

[sparowe]

Poor baby. But you are right... it is a good reference picture.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

beasts that large and noble shouldn't ever collapse in the street schlepping beer, of all things.

: o (

i'm glad there are some people there at least. the horse isn't just lying there alone.

[bachsoprano.livejournal.com]

Aha! I stand corrected! Though, that is very sad....poor guy.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

file that under things you never really want to be right about given it takes photographic evidence like that to prove it.

i swear i get sick when i think of the million horses and mules that got offed during the war ~ and here's one nearly 100 years later suffering for people's stupid gluttony.

[tiptoes away to avoid going on a tear].

: o p

[faynudibranch.livejournal.com]

Huh. That's really interesting, actually (though dreadful). I'd never thought about whether both horses went down because I'm usually still trying to see the carriage fall over, since there seem to be so many carriage accidents.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i'm guessing carriage accidents are of several ilks: runaway horses (that have been spooked, for example), or carriages just colliding with other carriages or other obstacles out of careless driving ~ like around corners. if the carriages fall over, it's usually because they are thrown off balance. it doesn't seem likely that a horse could pull a carriage over just by falling. in fact i would think that most horses wouldn't fall at all ~ it's the carriage that pulls them down in accidents.

i dunno ~ it's all very interesting. do you know of, by any chance, any newspaper reports of Seward's carriage accident? i've been meaning to look for some. it certainly seemed like a serious one.

: o p

[faynudibranch.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure Bungo was talking about him having another serious one years earlier, too...

no I don't know, but she's been pretty into him lately so she might :).

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i can't seem to bother myself to read any of his biographical stuff.

i'm bad, i know. it's not personal, i swear.

: o p

[faynudibranch.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, it's ok, I simply haven't the energy for most people. Although i suppose it says horrible things about me that I'm too busy hanging out with Weichmann to have time for the Uninon Cabinet........*cough*...hahaha :D

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

Well, Looie is so much more entertaining, i guess, compared to all those stuffed shirts!

i find him a spineless whiner, i confess. we don't get along much and always feel like throwing food at him when i see his picture. something messy, like spaghetti or jello ~ hahahahaha.

: D

[faynudibranch.livejournal.com]

ahaha I know :) .

It's actually pretty disconcerting how I used to absolutely loathe him, and then find him laughable, and now I cry sometimes when people (in his life) make fun of him. But I still laugh. So I still remember what it was like when he wasn't the center of my L.a. life. ^^

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i would welcome some sympathetic pointers ~ i clearly have no objectivity when it comes to looie, among others ~ ~ stanty, bingham and john s., for example.

i try to think of looie as a terminally unhip wanna-be who was never invited to play any reindeer games, but nothing ever really excuses him for me.

i like to hope one day when we're all dead we'll find the whole lot of them hanging out in café heaven, all slights forgiven and forgotten.

looie probably would order something sissy mocha-frappa-cappa-latte with chocolate and cinnamon and hazelnut flavoring or somesuch.

[i am so very clearly avoiding work right now]

[faynudibranch.livejournal.com]

ahahahahahaha me too (avoiding work). omg cafe heaven. That is so cute. Now I feel better about today ^^.

[minstrel-ivare.livejournal.com]

I don't know of any newspaper accounts, but I know that Seward's (third and last) carriage accident was a case of spooked horses. There was something minorly wrong with the carriage doors, so the coachman got out and was trying to fix them when the horses bolted--Fred tried to grab the reins, fell (but not badly), and then Mr. Seward tried, and fell badly. A couple of soldiers successfully stopped the carriage down the road--the carriage, horses, and Fanny (who was still inside) were all perfectly fine.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

aha ~ ! yet another reason that passengers should remember to keep their hands in the vehicle at all times!

thank you for the particulars! i wasn't sure if he fell out of the carriage or was inside and the carriage fell.

: D

[minstrel-ivare.livejournal.com]

Mr. Seward's most entertaining carriage accident happened years earlier near Rochester, NY--he and his wife were driving through swampland and the wheel of their carriage fell off. (!) They would have been stranded in the swamp, but up rode Thurlow Weed, a strong young printer with deep blue eyes--and he rescued them. It was love at first sight. (Every account of their meeting has included a melodramatic description of Weed's good looks--I'm not quite sure why.) Weed later became Seward's close political ally and probably his dearest friend--he was a sketchy, sketchy man who was very good at buying votes (he certainly had a largeish hand in the re-election of Lincoln in '64).

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

the fact of seward and weed being such pals prolly cost seward the presidential nomination.

i think weed was kinda weedy personally. i guess they always say he was good looking to try to impress on us that he had charisma. no doubt he did. mebbe his pixtures just don't do him justice.

: D

[annabellissima.livejournal.com]

Poor horsey :(

I think your picture and the angle of it are quite good.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

thank you ~ !

: D